TAMPA, Fla. – The trial of a former college professor, Sami al-Arian, and three other men charged with running the American wing of a terror group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, bogged down yesterday afternoon as soon as the first witness took the stand.

Defense lawyers had braced themselves for the government to call a series of terror victims in an effort to “shock and awe” the jury, but the impact of the prosecution’s actual opening might better be described as snooze and bore.

For three hours, prosecutor Terry Zitek led a federal immigration agent, Timothy Shavers, through a panoply of forms used by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, now part of the Department of Homeland Security. Some forms were blank; others pertained to some of the defendants.

Mr. Zitek appeared intent on showing that some of the defendants had lied about their backgrounds. However, as court recessed for the day, Judge James Moody Jr. warned the prosecutor to “pick up the pace … or you’re going to have to bring a supply of No-Doz.”

Yesterday morning, defense attorneys for the three of the four men facing trial sought to downplay their involvement with radical Islam and to accuse the government of misinterpreting the facts.

“This is a case of no evidence,” said Bruce Howie, an attorney for defendant Ghassan Ballut. Mr. Howie said Mr. Ballut’s indictment was due to a fiery speech he made at a Palestinian Arab rally in Chicago in 1991.”The only items that the government had to produce against Ghassan Ballut are his words…. Mr. Ballut speaks in no uncertain terms in a strident voice against the Israeli government.”

The prosecution asserts that Mr. Ballut praised the founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad and went on to urge Muslims to point rifles at the chest of the enemy. The indictment alleges the comments were directed at American forces gathering in Kuwait for the first Gulf War. An attorney for the only American-born defendant, Hatem Fariz, stressed his client’s ties to America. “Hatem Fariz is not a co-conspirator. He is not a member of Islamic Jihad,” said the lawyer, Kevin Beck.

Mr. Beck said money Mr. Fariz is accused of sending abroad for the terror group was part of legitimate charity. “Justice doesn’t rely on innuendo,” the attorney said.

While the defense attorneys who argued yesterday were, at times, critical of the government, they were far less confrontational than Mr. al-Arian’s lawyer, William Moffitt, was in his statement to the jury on Monday.

In addition, some of the defense lawyers were conciliatory toward Israel. That contrasted with Mr. Moffitt, who suggested that Israelis who may be in America to testify at the trial should “go home.”

The lawyer for another defendant, Sameeh Hammoudeh, portrayed his client as a devoted advocate of the Middle East peace process. The attorney, Stephen Bernstein, said Hammoudeh worked for seven years for a top figure in the Palestinian Authority, Faisal Husseini. An FBI expert has opined that no member of the Palestinian Authority would also be a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad because of a rivalry between the groups.

Mr. Bernstein also told the jury repeatedly yesterday of Hammoudeh’s connections with a respected Palestinian Arab sociologist, Khalil Shikaki. In the early 1990s, Mr. Shikaki was a researcher for a think tank Mr. al-Arian set up in Tampa, the World & Islam Studies Enterprise. Prosecutors allege the institute was a front for Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Mr. Shikaki has not been charged, but Mr. Bernstein suggested that the scholar should have been, if the think tank were truly a cover for terrorists. “Aren’t they all equally guilty?” the attorney said.

Mr. Shikaki is on the witness list for prosecutors and at least one of the defendants. Defense lawyers told the jury he is planning to teach at Brandeis University this fall.

A university spokeswoman said Mr. Shikaki will be a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and will teach with a professor in the government department, Shai Feldman.

Mr. Shikaki, who holds a doctorate in political science from Columbia, is director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, based in the West Bank. He has publicly repudiated his brother, Fathi, who was a founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The terror leader was killed in Malta in 1995 in an operation some link to the Israeli government.

In a brief interview yesterday, Mr. al-Arian’s lawyer, Mr. Moffitt, stood by his statement Monday that prosecutors had named a Washington lobbyist, Khaled Saffuri, as a co-conspirator in the case. In his opening statement, Mr. Moffitt said a man named Saffuri who worked with a prominent anti-tax activist, Grover Norquist, helped Mr. al-Arian establish ties with the Republican Party and was considered “another co-conspirator.”

Asked yesterday precisely when prosecutors made such an assertion, Mr. Moffitt said, “I’ve got enough paper in my head … I’m sure we saw it.”

A spokesman for the prosecution had no comment on the claim. Mr. Saffuri’s name does not appear on a list of unindicted co-conspirators that prosecutors filed publicly in April.

Mr. Saffuri, who now works at a law and lobbying firm, Collier Shannon Scott, did not respond to several requests to comment for this story. Last month, he testified before Congress as chairman of a Muslim-American political organization, the Islamic Free Market Institute.

A spokesman for the Muslim group, Nick Yawer, said Mr. Saffuri recently gave up that post to focus on his lobbying work. “He’s in the process of resigning,” Mr. Yawer said.